Controls Engineer (Robotics)

Job Description

Job Description

The Company

We believe general-purpose, generally-intelligent robots will be built in our lifetimes. Robots will work in our factories, move our goods, walk on our streets and eventually be in our homes. To build that future, research and deployment must work in lockstep: real-world operation must make the technology better and better technology must make deployment easier. We're looking for the thinkers, builders, and researchers who want to be part of that loop.

As an AI robotics company that deploys its inventions directly into the facilities that need them, on state-of-the-art hardware, every line of code written at Tutor has a direct impact on the global, physical economy.

Our Culture

We believe that something truly special can happen when talented, motivated people work together; at Tutor, every member of our team is empowered to have real impact in everything that they do. We're characterized by both technical excellence and next-level collaboration and respect.

About the Role

Our robots work in customer facilities with people nearby. The code that decides how an arm moves, how fast, and how it stops is what keeps those people safe. We're looking for a controls engineer to own it.

The work is controls: joint limits, speed limits, stopping distances and stopping times, contact and collision behavior, the loop that turns a motion command into torque, and the monitoring that detects when that loop misbehaves. It is also software work. The code lives in a large codebase that changes every week, and the safety-critical parts of it have to be written, organized, tested, and reviewed so they stay correct through those changes. The person we want has worked in a codebase where a mistake had physical consequences, has written and organized a lot of code there, and is comfortable with the physics underneath it.

You will build the hardware-in-the-loop test bench that runs the control code against real arms and real stop circuits, in continuous integration. You will also keep the evidence current: the measurements and tests that show the arm stops when it should, updated as the code, the arms, and the applications change.

The formal side of safety, risk assessments and the standards customers ask about, is part of the role. We will teach it.

What You'll Do

• Own the safety-critical control code for our arms: Limits, stop behavior, collision response, and the monitoring around the control loop
• Work on the control loop itself: Timing, stability, and failure modes, from the motion command down to the drives
• Organize the code so it can be trusted: Keep the safety-critical parts small, separated, tested, and reviewable, and set the rules for how other code touches them
• Build hardware-in-the-loop testing: A bench and a continuous-integration path that run the control code against real arms and real safety hardware
• Keep the evidence current: Stopping-time measurements and the tests behind the safety argument, updated whenever the code or the hardware changes
• Document the design: Decisions, limits, and the reasons for them, in a form other engineers follow

What We're Looking For

• Real-time control experience on physical systems: Robot arms, vehicles, aircraft, or similar. You have written control code that moved hardware and handled its failures
• Experience in a mission-critical codebase: You have written and organized a large amount of code where mistakes had physical consequences, and you know what that requires of structure, testing, and review
• Comfortable with the physics: Dynamics, torque, inertia, stopping distances, contact. You can reason about what the arm will do
• Strong systems software: C++ and Python or similar, real-time behavior on Linux, and safety-critical code kept separate from the rest
• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing: You have built or used a rig that put real hardware in the loop with software under test

Nice to Have

• Exposure to safety standards for robots or machinery, such as ISO 10218, ISO 13849, or ANSI/RIA R15.06
• EtherCAT or other fieldbus experience with servo drives
• Experience with safety-rated controllers or certified functional safety components
• Experience in warehouses, manufacturing, or other environments where robots and people share space

About Our Roles & Titles

At Tutor, we believe great engineers and researchers are defined by what they build and the impact they have — not where they sit in an org chart or what title they have. Therefore, everyone in our R&D org holds the title Member of Technical Staff (MoTS) . Our job postings use standard titles so you can find us, but if you join Tutor, you'll be a MoTS — with a level that is determined through the interview process.

That also means we hire people, not slots. Work at Tutor evolves every quarter, and we set the expectation of flexibility from day one — it's common for people to start on one thing and shift to another based on where the team needs them most. A high technical bar across the board is what makes that flexibility possible: it's what allows people to contribute meaningfully whatever problem they take on.